Beer Review: St. Bernardus Abt 12 Oak Aged

St. Bernardus Abt 12 Oak Aged with a branded goblet. Copyright 2015 by Andrew Dunn.

Today’s a big day around here at the Belgian Beer Bureau. It’s my birthday!

I celebrated in my usual manner. I had a fantastic burger at my favorite local restaurant, Mid City Grill, a BYOB restaurant, and took along a new Belgian beer to sample.

Given that it is my birthday, I tried a special one tonight. I have already written about my love for St. Bernardus Abt 12, which is brewed in Watou, Belgium. But I hadn’t tried the Oak Aged Abt 12 until tonight.

I even broke out my vintage St. Bernardus goblet for the occasion. I bought it for $1 at a local thrift store. Happy birthday to me, indeed.

Smell: Red wine is the first thing that hits you. Then it mellows into a typical Belgian, yeasty, dark beer smell.

St. Bernardus Abt 12 Oak Aged poured into a branded goblet. Copyright 2015 by Andrew Dunn.

Sight: St. Bernardus Abt 12 Oak Aged pours a dark chocolate hued with red mahogany. It is topped with a full oak-stained frothy head.

Taste: Spicy and sweet with only a faint red wine quality. This beer does  seem drier than the regular Abt 12. If there is any oaky or vinous sour tinge, it is indistinguishable.

Alcohol: This is a heavyweight, punching in at 11 percent. Sip slow and among friends.

Overall: I love Abt 12, and I love Oak Aged Abt 12 just as much. But to be honest, it didn’t blow me away. I was expecting more. I was expecting this monumental shift, this complete divergence from the regular Abt 12. I was expecting a full-bodied, Burgundy wine, sour beer, funky explosion. And it just didn’t deliver. It tastes a lot like Abt 12. That’s not a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination. But it wasn’t ground-breaking either. So overall, I still love it. And yet, it still let me down.

Bottom line: OK, this bottle of beer is stupid, STUPID expensive. My 750 ml bottle, a present from my mom, came from a local shop for about $28. That was cheap. Most have it for $30 and more. INSANITY! There is no way this beer is worth that. Look, Abt 12 is already a pricey beer. This Oak Aged Abt 12 just off-the-chain expensive. There is no way you can justify that price to me. It tastes exactly like regular Abt 12, which is about half that price. All I can say is that this beer is 100 percent NOT worth the price on the bottle. I love it, but regular Abt 12 tastes exactly the same.

Beer Review: Straffe Hendrik Heritage

Straffe Hendrik Heritage poured into a Thirsty Monk branded glass. Copyright 2015 by Andrew Dunn.

Barrel aging beers is apparently all the rage these days. Two of the breweries I hit last week in Asheville, North Carolina, Catawba Brewing Co. and Wicked Weed Brewing, have a whole line of barrel brews.

I’m of two minds on this. On the one hand, I love the experimentation with beer. On the other hand, I like beer more than wine and hard liquor.

Don’t get me wrong, I like whiskey and wine just fine. But I drink beer because I like the taste of beer. And I think that’s why barrel-aged beers probably won’t ever be my favorites.

I like them quite a bit. They’re fun to bring to parties. But I can’t say I’d make them my everyday beer.

Well, how about a barrel-aged quad?

Temptress!

In fact, Straffe Hendrik makes one. Straffe Hendrik Heritage is a barrel-aged quad that matures in an oak barrel for more than a year. And it just so happens that the Thirsty Monk in Asheville had it on tap last week.

Smell: Burgundy wine and raisins.

Sight: Deep, deep mahogany with a beige woody head. Just a hint of ruddiness. It has lots of thick lacing all the way to the last drop.

Taste: Tart but deeply sweet. You get a port and red wine flavor to the beer. There is a deep, deep vinous flavor with a sour tinge. You can really pick up the oak.

Alcohol: Heritage throws its weight around at 11 percent. I leaves a lingering alcohol presence on the back of the throat.

Overall: I dug this. If all barrel-aged beers tasted like this or if all sours tasted like this, I could get behind them. I’d still not say it’d be my go-to beer. In fact, I’d still prefer just the regular Straffe Hendrik Quad. But if I was cutting into a thick juicy rare steak, this would pair very nicely indeed.

Bottom line: OK, this one’s price is all over the map. I paid $8 for a five ounce pour. I saw a 2011 bomber bottle in a shop for $32. I saw a later vintage bottle for less than $15. If you can find it for the latter or on tap, then go for it. Otherwise, I’d say it’s over-priced.

 

The Great Beer Hunt

I have always been a collector. I collected bottles, comics, and Coca-Cola memorabilia as a kid. I still collect comics sometimes, but now I also collect rare beers … and drink them.

Just today I drove an hour out of town to pick up a four-pack of Founders Kentucky Breakfast Stout, a beer that has eluded me for three years. This is a ridiculously hard beer to come by, particularly for me as my area of Tennessee doesn’t even carry Founders.  I traded a bottle of the even more hard-to-find Westvleteren 12 for the KBS.

As a result, I now have a growing collection of super rare brews. As seen below, I have Founders Blushing Monk, a raspberry fruit beer; Founders KBS, a bourbon-barrel-aged stout; Dogfish Head 120-minute IPA, an extremely rare beer; and the legendary Westvleteren 12 six-pack brick.

My growing rare beer collection. From the left, Founders Blushing Monk, Founders KBS, Dogfish Head 120-minute IPA, and the legendary Westvleteren 12 brick. Copyright 2015 by Andrew Dunn.

Only one of these beers is actually from Belgium. And while Belgian beer is my passion, I do like other beers — lots of them, in fact.

In a way, I’m collecting the experience. I love sampling these scarce suds. But I also just love the hunt.

Goose Island Bourbon County, a rare stout I found in Johnson City, Tennessee. Copyright 2015 by Andrew Dunn.

I love searching the Internet to find that one beer. I love trading with fellow beer lovers, like I did today, to get my hands on the bottles I want. And I love wandering into a shop and finding that rare gem.

That happened this year. I went into a local bottle shop here in Johnson City, Tennessee, and I came away with two bottles of Goose Island’s Bourbon County, an imperial stout aged in bourbon barrels. It was delicious and completely unexpected.

I have also lucked into two bottles of Dogfish Head 120-minute IPA, a deliciously and oddly sweet IPA, which is pictured above. I bought the first for my wife’s birthday from a shop in Bristol, Virginia, after the owner said he had no more. I bought it again this year from a different shop in Bristol thanks to a tip from a guy who works there.

That’s what I think is the best part: the unexpected finds. The wild animals you find on beer safari.

I mentioned before that I had given my wife two of the most sought after IPAs in the country, Russian River’s Pliny the Elder and Alchemist’s Heady Topper. Again, not my favorites, but fun for her. It was all made possible by the Internet.

There are many websites, online beer stores, and social media groups that you can turn to in order to find that one beer you really want. However, you will have to pay for it. And obviously, it will not come cheap.

Those Goose Island set me back $10 each. The Dogfish Head ran $10-$13. The Westvleteren 12 price is best left unmentioned.

For hard to find Belgian beers and glassware, I recommend Belgiuminabox.com. They are great folks, who ship safely and quickly. The shipping will be costly. But you probably knew that.

Another fun site is MyBeerCellar.com. This site is like eBay for beer. They have everything.

You can also turn to beer and liquor stores that sell online and ship to you. Here are some of my favorites:

• Beverages4Less
• Brusin’ Ales
• Gordon’s Fine Wines and Liquors
• Greenville Beer Exchange
• Luekens Liquors (I’ve never used them, but they come recommended.)

Finally, search Facebook and other social media for groups of like-minded folk. The guy I traded with today told me about a trader website called SeekABrew.com. See, you make new friends, you find new beers.

And if you happen to come across Cigar City’s Hunahpu or Tröegs’s Mad Elf, I’m still looking 🙂

UPDATE: I found two bottles of Mad Elf recently. But I’m still on the hunt for Cigar City’s Hunahpu and Founder’s Canadian Breakfast Stout.